HDTV cable terminal with Firewire - What's it for?

[yacopale]

I ve seen some new HDTV boxes with Firewire port
What are these for, and could i, say, connect the box to my dvd recorder via Firewire and record tv signal??
The way DV Cameras/DVD recorder works

thanks

adrian

[jman98]

Are you talking about cable boxes that support HD? I believe FCC regulations (I'm assuming you are American) require the firewire port on the cable box. It is possible to connect the box to a PC via the firewire port and if you install the right drivers, the PC can record unencrypted video straight from the box. See
http://hdjunkie.com/tutorials.html
Encrypted channels such as HBO can't be recorded this way.
I don't know if your proposed method would work or not, but what you would record would not be in high def if it did work.

[JohnnyMalaria]

In principle, yes.

There's a whole set of standards and protocols that relate to so-called AV/C Units. They define how, for example, an HDTV receiver unit can communicate with a video recorder unit, or how an audio player unit might communicate with a CD recorder unit.

Firewire is one of the most common ways for AV/C units to connect to each other.

Typically, when you connect two units, they exchange information to identify any common formats that they support etc. Ideally, connecting a miniDV camcorder to an HDTV receiver should trigger an exchange that results in the HDTV receiver sending SD DV to the camcorder (if it is in VTR mode).

Whether your specific models can actually do this, you will have to try for yourself.

Note, however, that the DV specification supports copy-protection, so, if your HDTV material is copy-protected, the camcorder is obliged to refuse to record it. Likewise for the DVD recorder.

[yacopale]

so you re saying there hasn't been much real testing on either equipment. I guess it's all test & see.
Here's the link to the actual HDTV terminal that the cable company offers.
http://www.shaw.ca/en-ca/ProductsServices/Television/Digital/Hardware-HDPVR.htm

I wonder if the cable company would give more (straight) details on this if i asked them

[oldandinthe way]

Its my belief that the Motorola HD box your cable company uses may have custom firmware defining the features actually supported by your system.

One of the selling points for this box is this customizing capability.

The only way to get accurate information may be to either try what you want to know about or actually ask a specific question about a capability from your cable company. This probably means you do not want to ask about anything which could be construed as piracy. And requires you actually reach a tech who knows something.

[edDV]

As JohnnyMalaria said the port is flexible but each cable company operating under the rules of the local communications authority determines what is and what is not supported.

In the USA the FCC (Michael Powell's tenure) took a position that any digital broadcast that is offered unencrypted over the air must be passed without encryption or copy protection to the IEEE-1394 port using the D-VHS MPeg2_ts format. This administrative decision could be changed at any time by Congress.

That means when you tune say the 7.1 subchannel of KABC-DT on cable channel 907, the box will provide the MPeg2_TS stream of that particular subchannel complete with audio and closed captions etc. If the cable company offers say the 7.2 24hr news subchannel on say channel 307, the MPeg2_TS stream of that subchannel will appear on the IEEE-1394 port.

This differs from QAM in the clear tuning where a separate QAM capable tuner may be able to directly access the channel from the coax cable.

I have never seen DV or any other format than MPeg2_TS supported on these cable box ports. This can differ by cable company and country.


PS: This is the best way to get 720p broadcasts from ABC/FOX as 720p/59.94 from these boxes rather than as 720p converted to 1080i/29.97 converted to 720p.